


Who Shall Wear the Starry Crown

by follyofyouth



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Violence, Cults, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Death, Lovecraftian, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28665471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/follyofyouth/pseuds/follyofyouth
Summary: An ancient secretive group seeks to bring forth their leader in a new body while the remnants of their last attempt mass forces to interfere with their plans. (In which Rhea is up to even worse tricks than usual, El is a failed vessel, and the Black Eagles (and friends) attempt to interfere with a potentially world-ending ritual.)
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra, Ferdinand von Aegir/Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Kudos: 8
Collections: The Three Houses AU Bang





	Who Shall Wear the Starry Crown

Generally, affairs of Adrestia are no longer his problem. His school days are long behind and he has a country to run, defenses to maintain, trade to conduct, the whole business of ‘ruling’ without going mad.

When he’d been informed of the explosion at Garreg Mach, he’d arranged for aid; it _was_ the neighborly thing to do, yes, but more importantly, it was an excuse to ensure the threat was contained, that he wouldn’t be seeing a recurrence on his soil. All verifiable intelligence, he believes, is good intelligence.

It is not a blast zone. It is not a crater. Those are words meant for things that can be grasped and communicated with ease.

Even in photographs, the images seem to swim before his eyes.

“The riders couldn’t get’em cleaner,” Judith says, stubbing out a cigarette. “And the wyverns were a wreck the whole damn time.”

It looks like Garreg Mach has been ripped from existence itself, a scorching of rubble and earth left in its wake.  
  
He distracts himself with tea, the nausea creeping into his stomach without cause. “That’s Fodlan for you,” he offers, the joke falling flat as soon as it’s left his mouth.

Judith’s gaze is sharp. “You’re too smart to really believe that.”  
  
He has to admit that she’s not wrong.

\--An ancient secretive group seeks to bring forth their leader in a new body while the remnants of their last attempt mass forces to interfere with their plans. (In which Rhea is up to even worse tricks than usual, El is a failed vessel, and the Black Eagles (and friends) attempt to interfere with a potentially world-ending ritual.)

Dorothea borders on chameleonic when she’s chooses to be, a fact Hubert has come to appreciate. Her singing is fine, but it’s her acting he favors — though he can’t complain about her aptitude with a knife, either.

_“Oh, Hubie”, she’d smiled, looking up from the tenement sink and the dress she’d never quite soak the blood out of. “Don’t tell me I’d fooled you, too? I thought you, of all people, would know better.”_

  
Naturally, a songstress couldn’t slit a throat without panache.

“You’re glowering again,” Edelgard says, the tiniest ounce of amusement tinging her reproach.

“It’s my job to keep the hoipoloi from you,” he answers. “The right look is the most expedient tool.”

“Ferdinand would be wounded if he knew you called him that.”

“Mr. Von Aegir should know that _I_ am wounded when he throws the curtains wide to ‘greet the day.’”

“You could just do what Dorothea does.”  
  
“Though I admire her commitment, pillows are hardly my favored projectile.”

“I’ve never known you to favor physical combat at all.”

“It leaves too much evidence.”  
  
She gives him a look of her own.

\--

 _The girl before him is small, all big violet eyes and matted hair. Ten years old, he was informed. Hubert can’t decide if it’s a kindness that she’s made it this far or another particular cruelty of that to which his father’s_ superiors _have pledged themselves._

 _The_ goddess, _he thinks, derisive._

_This is his first time pressed into service, the first ‘vessel’ he is meant to take charge over. She has cleared the first hurdle and now she must be prepared for the next, and the next, and the next, and so on until she is offered up: a starved calf upon the altar of mad men._

_His role is to watch from afar, to observe, to ensure needs are met without injecting himself into the situation, lest he ‘corrupt her.’_

_After her fifth escape attempt, the fifth time they have flayed the flesh from her hands in penance, he turns the guard to a pile of ash and manages a faltering, clumsy bit of healing magic — pathetic by his own standards, but enough to give her some relief._

_“I won’t let them win,” she says, matter of fact. It’s a remarkable amount of resolve for someone who hasn’t stopped shaking. “The ritual’s going to fail. I’m going to make sure it fails.”_

_His gaze swivels to hers. “I’ll make the arrangements.”_

\--

Watching them, she’s almost reminded of Caspar and Linhardt — though, Edelgard is forced to concede, she can’t conceive of a Linhardt so keen on martial pursuits or a Caspar whose eye wandered so freely. 

Felix Fraldarius ashes his cigarette, hiding the concern in his eyes behind the near playing at his lips.

She watches Hubert gather the documents, long bony fingers sorting them back into place as the jazz band downstairs wails away. She’s come to appreciate watching him work, the reliable precision in all things.

Well, not _all_ things. Hubert von Vestra come undone is not an uncommon occurrence, though it is, without fail, a private one.

_Could it even be said to have an audience if all parties take an active role?_

She chases the thought from her mind. This, of all times, is not a prudent moment for distraction.

She hadn’t known what to make of Sylvain Gautier at first pass. His charm had come to easy, the languid drape of his arm across the back of the booth had been too casual. The man had garbed himself in the regalia of the fool, the libertine, the untrustworthy lout — but the divide between authenticity and artifice is blurry in the best of times.

He’d done an admirable job of trying, at least. He’d kept his face schooled into something inscrutable, a play from indulged boredom toward skeptical consideration.

It’s his eyes that give him away.

She is, in fact, aware of the situation on the ground in Faerghus: years of poor harvest, of disease. Its nobles live better, yes, but this one reminds her more of a hungry dog than the son of a Margrave. He’s known want, but more interestingly, he’s known rage — rage he’s never quite managed to conceal, if it’s this apparent to her.

“And you expect us to take this –all of this– at your word and some paperwork?” Fraldarius asks.

“I’d be concerned if you did,” she answers, Dorothea’s voice drifting up through the floorboards. 

“Well?”

If she has learned anything in maneuvering around the Adrestian court, it is something of presentation: you can offer up every pretty word, but if you don’t present it with just the right accoutrement, you may as well have offered it to the stones of the palace itself.

When she drops the shawl, the crest of her father’s house a searing red against the black, she can tell she’s made just the right show of it.  
  


“Alright,” Gautier says, unable to tear his eyes from her. “You’ve … we’ll help.”

\--

 _In her dreams, she can hear_ it, _can feel it, some force brushing up against the edge of her mind. It wants her voice, yes, but it doesn’t want_ her, _finds her something dangerous, objectionable, bad, dirty._

_It sings to her, sometimes, promises of love, light, family, beauty, a life without hunger or pain or want. The bad nights are when she can’t escape the song; the worst mornings are when she finds herself humming it under her breath._

_The bishop takes her by the chin and Dorothea swears that what looks back at her from behind those entrancing eyes is enough to make her wish for the squalor of the streets, for starvation._

_She hasn’t seen Edie in days and that frightens her more than she’d admit to anyone. If Edelgard is still_ Edelgard _, then the world is still whole and the thing is at bay. If she can fight it off in her dreams, chase the melodies from her mind in daylight, then it cannot take her. She is of this world, not that one; she will dig her claws in for as long as she can._

_She’ll tell herself later on that it was an accident and, even later, that it was self-defense._

_The tendrils snake their way up the man’s body, worm their way into his nose, his mouth, his ears. It’s horrifying, yes, but it stops his singing, keeps the_ thing’s _sweet supplications from ringing out._

_She doesn’t know how to describe what happens next, doesn’t think the human mind is truly meant to have the words for it. All she can say — all she will tell the tall boy with the dark hair and the green eyes, the one who’s watched her with the kind of intensity that makes her think he might be planning to snap her neck should the opportunity present itself— is that that, one minute the man was there, and the next minute, he was ash, blown to the boy’s feet by a draft without a source._

_He doesn’t snap her neck.  
  
He _does _teach her to snap someone else’s._

\--

Spilling out into the dark of the night, Hubert spares a moment of gratitude that the city’s slums have been spotty in their maintenance of the streetlights. For all its patrons with money to toss about, the club is a hole in the wall, far from the trolley tracks illuminated as a matter of pedestrian safety.

  
Dorothea wastes no time in batting eyes at the future Margrave, even as she curls closer around Adrestia’s next emperor. Even at her lowest, the songstress has never been able to resist poking a bit of fun and the Fraldarius heir has made himself an easy target by proxy of his erstwhile associate. A picture of beads and velvet, she’s a useful bit of misdirection and, though he’d never admit it, a non-too-occasional source of distraction.

She catches Edelgard in a kiss, giggling into it like the giddy schoolgirl Hubert knows for a fact she has never been.

\--

_Ultimately, the imperial princess saves herself._

_The forces of_ here _and_ there _and_ then _and_ now _converge upon on her, a cosmic weight of incalculable proportions. It’s like drowning, her consciousness slipping away from her, dragging her down._

 _Something_ cracks _in the distance and she knows this is the moment. If she has ever maintained any illusion of saving herself, of saving her very_ self _, this is the moment she had better prove she’s all the things she’s been so long assured she is._

_Petty. Willful. Spiteful. A fool who can’t accept the glorious fate ordained to be hers._

_The rage is something more than herself, like tapping into the primordial fury of all who have come before her. If she’s going to be a conduit, it will be one of her own choosing, of vengeance and blood, of animosity and obsession. Her body is its own testament, a gospel of horrors writ large in scars that have never quite healed._

_She’s going to hurt them. She’s going to hurt them in ways they can’t fathom, ways they can’t even conceive. They’ve cleared a path for her, yes, but she has no intention of being the vessel they intended to create.  
  
_ _She will be the harbinger of their end._

_She thinks she hears a voice screaming; it will only be later, when her voice is too raspy to be heard, that she’ll realize It was her own._

_When she is finally certain she is still herself, she realizes Hubert has her. Dorothea’s fingers, shaking, bloodied, and covered in silt, reach out to brush a lock of hair back from her forehead. Looking up, she sees not the stone of the chamber, but the twinkling of the stars above; she can’t shake the sense she’s forged her own pact, one to which pledged her fate when reality unknit itself for a moment around them._

\--

They’re late.

  
If it were anyone else, he’d write it off as distraction. Ferdinand, of all people, understands the importance of a well-timed smile, of a friendly bit of small talk. There is something to be said for obligatory loyalty, yes, but he’s always found genuine devotion is rooted in sincerity.

His partners, however, are a different matter.

Either that or Hubert’s decided that time spent in the company of roaches is some sort of exercise in preparedness. It’s certainly an instructive lesson in matters he’ll need to bring before parliament. Surely, they can do better for the people of Adrestia than squalid tenements with too thin walls and the persistent _drip_ of someone else’s icebox overhead.

He supposes it’s good, in a way, to spend time in these circumstances — even if it’s more than he would like. The matter of his partners remains its own challenge.  
  
He’d begged Edelgard to let him go in her stead, to —for the first time in her life— please delegate just one thing. From anyone else, he’d take it as an affront, a commentary on his competence. From her, however, it’s simply her nature.

Not that it makes the entire matter any less maddening.

He’s certain the reports are good. He’d taken pains to corroborate every detail he could, matching the descriptions from Hubert’s informants to the official reports of Adrestia’s envoys in Faerghus. Every marker is there; every ominous box is checked.

All the same, making contact with the noblemen isn’t without its risks — particularly should their intentions fail to match their rank.

_“it’s not as if I can’t handle myself, Ferdinand,” Edelgard sighed over tea. “I assure you: should the worst come to pass, we’ll all return home to you and regale you with the tale of your prescient advisements.”_

_Ordinarily, he’d take some pleasure in the idea of a triumph, but not at the risk of her safety, nor Hubert’s or Dorothea’s._

_“At any rate,” she’d continued, pirouetting away his point, “I need your expertise elsewhere.”_

In his younger days, the admission by the Imperial Princess that he possessed any modicum of talent would have been enough to carry him through whatever trial she set him with. Now, however, he knows better.

Lysithea and Linhardt’s partnership in the pursuit of knowledge may be the strangest working relationship Ferdinand has ever seen. Lysithea’s burning drive and sharp words fit ill at ease with Lindhart’s languid lounging, the sleeves of his silk robe forever unmarred by ink and remarkably unrumpled by his frequent thinking naps.

It is a fundamental disunity of personality. While Linhardt cannot conceive of a working solution born in frantic toil, rife with the possibility of error and unconsidered chance, Lysithea cannot rest until they have achieved a litany of means to a singular end, the fate of so many of house Ordelia’s children shadowing her every step.

Ferdinand would like to say he’s learned to serve as an effective buffer, the element that enables the two to work harmoniously. In truth, he has had no more success with them than he has with Bernadetta, secreted away in her room. In any case, it is neither the charm of his wit nor the warmth of his demeanor that has earned him any ground — it is his unparalleled ability to proffer the correct bribe at the correct time.

Hardly the kind of skill to build a noble reputation upon.

\--

_No one had expected a savior. A quick and painless death had seemed the only reasonable aspiration; their mere survival had been miracle enough. Edelgard knows now that there is something beyond them, knows how little it cares for those who do not serve its ends._

_Ferdinand’s mouth hands open and she shivers in Hubert’s arms. The car is barely meant to hold two people, let alone four, its plush interior not meant to be stained by blood and ichor. The wool blanket, emblazoned with the von Aegir crest, is not the only hospitality he offers._

_She cannot bring herself to spare even a moment’s pity for his father._

_Her first week back in her home, she sleeps. Whatever she has done has wrung the life out of her and, yet, there is still so much more to do. Later, she’ll be told Hubert, Dorothea, and even Ferdinand stayed by her side. Her father will compare them to sentinels, vigilance unwavering as if they expected some kind of attack. When he asks, she won’t be able to tell him what she’s done to earn their loyalty._

  
\--

He always thought of Fodlan’s bread basket as rolling in dough. Good soil, good climate, a population fed well enough to avoid falling to every little old plague that tears through; he would have assumed it added up to more than this.

Or maybe the princess simply enjoys slumming it. Sylvain can appreciate a taste for the wild side. It puts Felix more at ease, even as he paces the well-worn floors and their squeaking boards. That will have to be enough for them both.

He leans his head back against the threadbare couch, smoke rings billowing from his lips. The tobacco is fresh and sharp, the kind of prelude he’d like to every story.

What do you say, he wonders, to a room of strange about your friend’s descent from himself? What do you say to a room of people who cannot fathom want about a want so big it swallows all reason and logic? How do you explain to them what it is like for a child to ache for an entire nation or how that ache might be molded, shaped, encouraged —even inadvertently — by a culture of myth that has always preferred its heroes martyred?

 _Dulce et decorum es pro patria mori_ , he thinks, bitter.

Still, he has to start somewhere. For now, he figures the facts will have to suffice.

The Church runs deep within Faerghus and Sylvain doesn’t consider that a bad thing. If there’s someone there to stop the gaps, to keep the hungry fed and the cold sheltered, then it’s enough. He’s not the old time religious sort, but the people he knows who are —people like Lord Lonato and Mercedes von Bartels— are good people. Decent people.

So, no, he’d never really paid much attention, not until the Archbishop really took an interest in the kingdom.

He’d love to say he thought there was something fishy from the start and make himself the hero of this tale, but the fact of the matter remains that he’s always had a weakness for the aesthetics of the otherworldly.  
  
It was strange when they brought Lonato up on blasphemy. The man’s citizens adored him, threw themselves against the church’s forces in his defense. They never stood a chance and Sylvain does not think the lord’s land will ever be free of the stains from their blood.

But his father yet lives and so Sylvain allowed it to pass. No one expects much of him and he sees no reason to demonstrate a counterargument when it’s far more agreeable to go about his business as he pleases.

Which is exactly what he would have done, had things not forcibly inserted themselves into that business.

  
Dimitri is the prince, yes, but more importantly, Dimitri is his friend. With his terrible hair and his near magical gift for shattering swords and his heart so ready to break for the less fortunate of Faerghus, there is no one Sylvain could imagine as a better king.

Admittedly, he will concede Dimitri could use a lesson in lightening up, in taking a moment to appreciate the beauty around him. He’s always been so serious, so earnest in his devotion to duty. When he began to take regular meetings with the Archbishop, Sylvain assumed it was just another step on the journey to the throne.

Felix has no use for Sylvain’s pretty words. The Boar’s a boar and there’s nothing be done about that. Garb him in silks and furs and the drag of civility, but the thing in that skin is barely fit to be called human. The sooner everyone else understands that, the sooner they can move onto the meat of the problem.

He knows a thing or two about the Boar, things other people don’t look for or choose to ignore. It comes from careful observation — years of it. If you do not understand the threat, you cannot possibly hope to develop tactics against it.

At some point, the Boar ceased to fully be himself. Though Felix would ordinarily consider it an improvement, this new thing parading in the prince’s clothes is not right. It is furtive and reclusive and oily, secluding itself in the prince’s chambers for _spiritual reflection and purification._

“So you came here.”  
  
Sylvain eyes up the other man: tall, dark hair, probably a knife or three concealed on him. He gets the distinct impression this is their barrier to entrance, their litmus test to join the club.

“What can I say?” Sylvain asks, trying not to tense. “I went to see a man about a dog and got a cult instead.”

\--  
  
 _In truth, she isn’t bothered by the means by which they come across materials. Some people do not need to be here. Some people improve the world by being forcibly removed from it._

_She was the oldest, a fact she does not like to dwell on. Her littlest cousins were taken first, the state their tiny bodies were discovered in spoken of only in hushed tones. On and on it went, up the line, the pure and innocent a dwindling resource. House Ordelia responded to a call for aid, and paid in the blood of its future._

_She does not know what happened to the woman who ensured her escape. Lysithea cannot imagine fate was particularly interested in repaying the kindness._

_She is the faster of the two and takes her pick of the tomes. Time is precious and ever-dwindling; Hubert and Caspar can only take so long in incinerating what little remains of Solon._

_Working with Linhardt is an exercise in madness, an unending trial of her patience. For all his cleverness, for all the ways he clicks the pieces together when the nights are long and her body screams for rest, he Is a terrible accomplice when it comes to the theft of research material, too easily distracted by his own pursuits. She gives him an elbow to the side, shoving him off from the collection of books he’s somehow managed to overlook._

_Looking back, she’ll never be able to say what drew her to them. They were old, yes, but no older than any of the other titles lining Solon’s shelves. They looked no more important nor did they seem likely to brim with any staggering insights._

_So along they went, loaded into the back of the club’s purloined delivery truck for its final fateful run, Caspar hollering from the front seat as he takes the corner’s too sharply._

_She is the faster of the two and takes her pick of the tomes. Time is precious and ever-dwindling; Hubert and Caspar can only take so long in incinerating what little remains of Solon._

_Working with Linhardt is an exercise in madness, an unending trial of her patience. For all his cleverness, for all the ways he clicks the pieces together when the nights are long and her body screams for rest, he Is a terrible accomplice when it comes to the theft of research material, too easily distracted by his own pursuits. She gives him an elbow to the side, shoving him off from the collection of books he’s somehow managed to overlook._

_Looking back, she’ll never be able to say what drew her to them. They were old, yes, but no older than any of the other titles lining Solon’s shelves. They looked no more important nor did they seem likely to brim with any staggering insights._

_So along they went, loaded into the back of the club’s purloined delivery truck for its final fateful run, Caspar hollering from the front seat as he takes the corner’s too sharply._

_She almost burns them once the dreams begin and once again when her associate begins to report identical counterparts. The books are only saved when Linhardt the indolent, Linhardt the somnolent, Linhardt of the silk robe lingers long enough in that twilight between the worlds to discover just_ where _in the books their attention is needed._

_She is no stranger to dark magic. Her sensibilities, save for cake, could not even charitably be described as sweet. Even still, the concept chills her: an unbinding from reality._

_Death is simple. It is an end. Your heart ceases to beat, your lungs draw no air. They lock your body up in a box and throw dirt over you while people above dab their eyes. You are alive or you are dead, but in either case, it’s rather concrete. There are words tied to states tied to observable phenomena._

_But to be unbound from reality itself? She can’t wrap her head around it. Even the magic seems to swim before her eyes, arranging and re-arranging itself as she struggles to map its contours. The structure of the spellwork is, itself, an aberration, a shimmering snag in the fabric of spacetime._

“Why study this kind of magic?”

Linhardt blinks up at her, sleepy. “How else would you kill a god?”

\--

She’d like to come out more. Really, she would. These people have been kind to her, given her shelter, kept her safe. Hubert had even personally disposed of her father, elevating her to Countess von Varley.

(Not that she’s much involved in the running of the Varley lands.)

But enough distractions. She is trying to be brave — or, failing that (which she almost certainly will), brav _er._

(She should have stayed in her room. Her room is safe. Her room has doors and locks and wards and people —maybe even friends?— who would take no small offense at anyone trying to gain entrance. She isn’t brave and she doesn’t know who she’s kidding with this charade. She can’t even say she would feel better if she could see where Jeritza lurks; the man’s mere presence is usually enough to terrify her into silence and it’s not as if strolling into a church isn’t without its terrifying, silencing risks as it is.)

She’s just here to deliver a letter. That’s it. That’s all. She just has to find this Mercedes, deliver the letter, and leave. Even she can do that. Even _she_ can’t screw that up.

(That’s a lie. She can. Her father, even if he is dead now, would have you know she has proven that over and over again. She’d fainted dead away at Hubert the first time she met him and that was after coming back from that first faint at having been _rescued_. She still feels bad about it. If she puts aside all of the other murders and the skeletal frame and the too-tall height and the terrifying laugh, Hubert is actually very nice.)

No one forced her to do this. No one so much as even gave her an expectant look. She came out of her room and she volunteered. Her friends (they’re probably her friends, right?) simply asked if she was sure and reminded her she wasn’t under any obligation (She’s fragile. She knows she is fragile. She is certain her friends know it too. It is the kind of thing that might as well be writ large across her forehead).

She crosses into the sanctuary and is not immediately gobbled up; in fact, she’s barely even noticed. Sun streams through the stained glass windows, painting patterns on the floor she’d like to copy in her own work one day. She’d say it’s peaceful, but with never knowing just _who’s_ moving through the church, all she feels is anxiety.

She steels herself to approach someone for help (and really, what is she going to say? “Oh, yes, hi, hello, could you please, uh, if you don’t mind, point me toward, um, Ms. Mercedes von Bartels? I, uh, have a letter for her. No, you can’t have it”).   
  
(Actually, Bernadetta thinks that’s not a bad starting point. If she can get it out of her mouth.)

The woman in the garden smells like sweets, like she’s just fresh from the kitchen. She offers a warm smile and asks if there’s anything she can do to help in a voice like a sing-song.

(Don’t run, Bernie. Don’t run. You made it this far. Just ask the woman.)  
  
“I’m … ah … I’m … I have to find Mercedes von Bartels!”

“Oh, that’s me,” Mercedes von Bartels smiles. “I wasn’t expecting any visitors today; I’m afraid I haven’t quite finished the sweets for tea.”

“I … I ….I have a letter for you!”  
  
(Well, she won’t be getting marks for social graces, but she’s gotten it out of her mouth.)

“A letter? Oh, from whom?”

“It’s … it’s a secret!” She says, drawing the envelope from the pocket of her coat, resisting the urge to just _throw it_ at Ms. Von Bartels and bolt.

Mercedes von Bartels takes it with all the gentleness in the world and slips a thumb under its wax seal. She slips the letter out with a graceful little motion, her brow furrowing as she reads.

(It occurs to her that it might have been smart to ask just what was _in_ this little missive. She doesn’t think her friends would set her up or use her as bait, but what if she’s wrong? What if she’s just too much work to ---)  
  
“Tell him yes,” Mercedes says, derailing the descent into the worst case scenario. “Tell him I’ll be very glad to meet him and I’ll be very interested in what he has to say. And that I’ll bring the tarts. He’ll know which ones.”

She isn’t sure just to _whom_ she’s supposed to report this, but she figures the sooner she can nod and run away, the sooner she can be back behind the safety of her door, her locks, her very frightening friends.

\--

_Linhardt enjoys a good historical account. While others complain they’re dull enough to put even an overstimulated Caspar right out, that’s precisely what he enjoys in his naptime literature._

_They are also, on rare occasions, a source of great insights, even if that is the near polar opposite of what he enjoys in his naptime literature._

_It seems Solon’s compatriots had made a long game out of chasing their foes embedded within the church. It’s not that their aims were any more noble, of course, but Linhardt’s not terribly concerned about their sense of ethics or morality. The man is dead; his associates are —he assumes— alive and will soon be rather displeased to hear the news. Either way, it seems a waste not to avail themselves of all the knowledge from which Solon was so forcibly parted._

_At any rate, Solon and company —Those Who Slither in the Dark, Hubert calls them and Linhardt can’t help but think that’s a bit dramatic for Mr. von Vestra’s standards— had begun tracking the Seiros cult’s activity when they realized the cult’s attempted rituals corresponded with spikes in strange energies. The nature of these energies of course escaped their ability to identify and it pains Linhardt to realize he is in much the same position._

_A bother, really._

_For its shortcomings and the man’s personal faults, however, Solon’s notes are meticulous. Observed surges in this strange energy correspond with both Lysithea and Edelgard’s escapes. Though he detests lazy leaps in logic, he’s forced to concede that’s like more causational in nature than simple correlation._

_Coincidences happen, but something tells him this isn’t one of them._

_He acquires —well, has Caspar spend Ferdinand’s money to acquire— the appropriate monitoring equipment and sets up shop, so to speak._

_It’s not long before he begins to notice these spikes as well, seeming to grow stronger._

_Edelgard’s jaw tightens at the news. “We’ll have to move quickly, then.”_

_Linhardt_ does _hate when she says that._

 _-_ \--

Mercedes is the best cook Caspar has ever met anywhere in his entire life. He can’t really wrap his head around the fact that she’s _Jeritza_ ’s sister, but now that he thinks about it, tall, blonde, and too intense for his own good has been just a little less intense since he showed up with her.

But on the topic of things he can’t imagine, he _also_ can’t imagine Bernie going anywhere near him and yet, she did. For half a second, Caspar considers the idea that Jeritza might secretly be a softie, but no, no, a single glare is enough to remind him that he would take great —probably bladed— offense at the mere suggestion.

He’s on his fourth cinnamon bun when Felix grunts and flings a letter onto the table. “Garreg Mach.”

“Beg your pardon?” Edelgard asks.

“They’re headed for Garreg Mach. The Board, some of his court to be, and the spiritual adviser.”

Edelgard sets her own heavenly confection down, her entire demeanor having shifted. “How long?”

“They’re coming by train. Royal visit through Faerghus first. All the horseshit pageantry.”

“He means about a week and a half,” Sylvain translates. “If the schedule Annette sent on is anything to go by.”

“Garreg Mach,” Hubert muses. “Certainly a bold choice. I’m surprised it’s even still sound enough to walk through, let alone house a ritual with a penchant for destruction.”

“We could beat them there,” Edelgard says. “Not by much, but by a few days. It could be enough to give us a slight advantage on them.”

Caspar digs his shoulder into Linhardt’s side, interrupting his attempted doze and earning him a sour look. When he still doesn’t say anything, Caspar realizes he’ll have to take the initiative. “Lin and Lysithea are working on something that could get us there a lot quicker.”

“Or scatter us all into a million pieces.” Lysithea crosses her arms.

“It _is_ still very theoretical at this stage,” Linhardt finally offers. “We haven’t tested it on anything living.”

“Tested what?” Edelgard asks.

“Based on what we found in Solon’s notes, we have reason to believe the geometry of our magic can be altered to have a greater effect on—”

“Long-range teleportation,” Lysithea cuts him off.

“I was getting to that,” he insists and Caspar offers him a conciliatory shoulder pat.

“How long range?” Edelgard presses.

“If we’re applying the theories correctly, almost limitless. But they’re theories.”

“And they suggest some volatility,” Linhardt adds. “We don’t know how to what extent.”

“I’ve handled the long-distance, but it was a single object. There wasn’t anything living,” Lysithea offers.

“If we try this, what’s the risk?”

She taps her spoon against her tea cup. “I couldn’t go more than a single person at a time. Even two feels dangerous. And there’s no quick way to make sure whoever goes made it.”

“There’s a village,” Dorothea pipes up. “Near Garreg Mach. Nothing remarkable or anything, but they’re trying to encourage visitors. Something about getting away from the city, getting back to nature, the goddess, that sort of thing.”

“They’re really leaning into it,” Ferdinand adds. “Some of the other nobles are already planning getaways.”

“You mean pilgrimages, Ferdie.”

“He means getaways,” Hubert mutters, finally joining in the fray.

“Has the village been electrified yet? If it’s so rural, I can’t imagine getting the lines out has been easy,” says Edelgard, seemingly unperturbed by the risk of being magically obliterated. Caspar has to hand it to her: when the Emperor-to-be knows what she wants, she _knows_ what she wants.

“The center of town was included in the most recent push,” Ferdinand offers.

“And telephone with it?”

At that, he can only shrug.

The debate goes on and on and on and, after a while, it just doesn’t pay Caspar to keep track. He’s all for a smart strategy and good tactics, but this just isn’t either of those. This is _discussing_ those — and only sort of at that. He loves Lin —really, he does— and he wants to support his work, truly. It’s just that he’s already lost the thread of it and he’s not closer to finding it and he’d rather _do_ than _talk_ anyway.

And, for that, he can only find one solution.

“I’ll go,” he says. “You need somebody to send, so send me.”

The entire room’s gaze falls to him, not quite believing he’s just volunteered. Caspar has been told enough times about the line between bravery and stupidity and he’s fairly certain everyone else thinks he’s crossed it.  
  
No, more than crossed it.  
  
Maybe … maybe flung himself across it.  
  
Unarmored.  
  
With …  
  
With a bear, or something.

“…No,” Edelgard finally says. “I’m grateful, Caspar, but I can’t ask you to—”

“That’s the thing! You don’t have to ask me. You don’t have to ask anybody!”

“They’re not even sure—”

“And they’re not gonna be sure until they’ve tried it. We don’t have a lot of time we can give up to these guys.”  
  


Lin would have a nicer word for it, a fancier word. He’d make it sound like poetry too, like the best thing you could ever imagine.

Caspar doesn’t have that gift. He’s a man of action, not word (or thought, as Hubert would drily remind him). He only knows how to report and all he can report is that Edelgard von Hresvelg, the next Emperor of Adrestia, doesn’t look like she knows what the fuck to say, the eminent pragmatism that drives her clashing with the moral code she swears steers her.

  
“So, are we gonna do this,” Caspar asks,” or just sit around and keep wasting time talking about it?”  
  
\--

The room doesn’t smell or rot or burning. It’s a stretch to call that a “good” sign, but Lysithea will take what she can get.

Linhardt’s silence, however, remains pointed directly at her.

It’s not her fault his boyfriend volunteered. It’s not her fault he didn’t’ stop him. It’s not her fault Caspar made an argument and pursued it to its logical conclusion.

If something happened to him, though, that will be her fault and Lindhart will make sure she remembers it.

Five minutes bleeds into ten bleeds into twenty bleeds into an hour, her stomach folded in on itself in knots.

Linhardt grabs the phone at its first ring, uncharacteristically on his toes. “Did you — What do you mean you — Did it occur to you it might be prudent to call before you sat down to dine?”

\--

She is actually quite sturdy in her devotion to the Goddess. The Goddess she knows, the Goddess whose values she strives to carry forth, believes in kindness, believes in comforting the sick, in caring for the vulnerable, in sheltering the defenseless.

But the Goddess Mercedes knows also believes in justice, in seeing wrongs done right. Kindness is not meekness. To defend, to avenge, the Goddess must also be strong — forceful, even.

The Goddess could not prevent Emile from being taken from them, but all these years later, she has seen fit to deliver Mercedes’s baby brother back to them all the same.

Garreg Mach is a site holy to the Goddess. It seems only right she repay the kindness and play her part in averting its defilement.

She’s joined an alliance she could have never predicted. It’s not so much the matters of rank or nationality, but disposition and demeanor. She’s never seen so much misdirection both made and shed in pursuit of a truly holy goal.

She doesn’t fully understand what was done to Emile, nor to Edelgard or Lysithea for that matter. Something flows through them, something both powerful and unnatural. It is some shard of the Goddess’s divine influence, yes, but there’s something wrong with it. Mercedes doesn’t know the word for it, not in any official sense, but there is a taint, a kind of rot that corrodes the very fiber of the soul, one that has found the strongest foothold in her brother.

They say the future king is not without the potential to be blindly devoured by his passions, some of them destructive, others violent. He’s a good man, Sylvain assures her, but not even good men come free of demons.

After all, isn’t she sitting here, lying in wait? Deception in the name of the Goddess is as slippery a slope as any.

Sylvain and Felix are meant to make themselves known to the Prince, joining the procession formally as the future heads of their houses. Their bond should be enough to earn Dimitri’s buy-in, or so the hope goes.

For her own part, she’s meant to play her piety as an attempt at learning more of what’s to come, perhaps finding some kind of weakness to report back.

It all sounds so straightforward, but she knows no one believes it will be.

She had encouraged Emile to stay with the others, to lend his strength should they need it. She is grateful for his presence, yes, but terrified of its loss. For all he has changed, though, he is still little Emile: too fond of sweets and too stubborn to listen. He moves among the ruin’s shadows, watchful and ever unseen.

Now, it’s all in the hands of the Goddess.

\--

 _They stand together in silence beneath a sky curiously devoid of stars. He’s never taken Ferdinand for the smoking sort, but then again, even he can enjoy a good surprise._

_“So, that’s really her aim?” Ferdinand asks, passing the cigarette back._

_Hubert inhales, slow and contemplative. “You doubt she’s capable of it?”  
  
To most, his tone alone would be a threat, but Ferdinand von Aegir has never been “most” — and has never let anyone forget it._

_“I know she’s smarter than to try it alone.”_

_Hubert quirks an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything._

_Ferdinand plucks the cigarette from between Hubert’s fingers. “Dorothea’s beauty alone will open doors and her wit will let her pass right through. Edelgard is both helped and hindered by her title, but I’ve never known her to be content with a simple situation.” The newly minted Duke von Aegir eyes him up, more flirtation than fight._

_“_ You _have always had a gift for getting where you aren’t meant to be.”_

 _“So, where does that leave you, dear Duke?” He may not be much for charm, but that doesn’t mean coquetry is entirely beyond Hubert’s grasp._

_“An ally.”_

_“Is that all then?”_

_“As if you would have me any other way,” Ferdinand almost sounds put out._

_“It’s possible I had something closer in mind.”_

\--

The soldier screams, his body pierced with spikes of dark energy. The air simmers and crackles and the sky has turned a hideous shade of yellow.

Of everything they planned for, this was not a probability.

Edelgard can admit that was short-sighted, that they should have factored in some kind of magical interference. For all their research, for all their due diligence, they simply hadn’t stumbled across the possibility that a vessel, suitably prepared, might be imbued with a link to its creator.

Really, her warning should have been that everything was going to plan.

They’d arrived with time to spare. They’d drawn maps, walked the escape routes, studied what of the old monastery might be used to their advantage. They’d been amply provisioned and armed with what she had believed to be a thorough understanding of the enemy.

Belief. Isn’t that always the thing that gets them into trouble? The fuel for the whole wretched enterprise? Belief without proof is the building block of nightmares; if she has come to understand anything, it is that.

Mercedes ingratiated herself to their enemy with the kind of grace she has only ever seen Dorothea manage; wide-eyed and devout, she’d made herself the picture of the perfect acolyte.

Sylvain’s approach, Edelgard can admit, wasn’t that far off; jocular and affable, he’d played the fool to Felix’s dour warrior — the future king’s childhood friends, come to support him in this momentous endeavor.

Of course, the children of Faerghus would not turn on this, its most holy achievement.

No one expected the insidious somnolence brought on by the proper herbal concoction, disguised in the regional tea. No one suspected its lapse might be great enough to allow something else —some _one_ else— to pry the prince from his stupor.

It should have been easy. It should have been a matter of relying upon a swift stealthy offensive.

Edelgard swings hard at another holy soldier, her axe wedging itself deep into the woman’s abdomen. Instead, when Sylvain and Dimitri broke through, when they’d shattered the workings of the spell, the timeline they’d so carefully crafted fell to pieces. This is not an ordered assault; this is a fray, a skirmish, a goddamn disorderly fray.

Ferdinand manages to dodge the spell, paying his would-be attacker back with a lead pipe across the face.

She doesn’t want to look closely. She doesn’t believe in fate, doesn’t believe in destiny. It is absurd to believe in a power that takes such vested interest in the affairs of such comparatively insignificant things so as to alter the tide of battle.  
  
She cannot “jinx” it, she tells herself.

She focuses. She focuses because it is what she has always done, because it is the only thing she knows how to do. Her heart pumps blood and her lungs draw air and her grip steadies around her axe, ready to strike again.

Find the advantage. Take the chance. Press your luck until the enemy is dead or until there is no luck left to press. She is still standing, still fighting. The air around her reeks of blood and ozone, but she feels more herself, more in control than she can ever remember.

\--

 _Dorothea would laugh, if she had the energy. Every child on the street dreams of the luxury of royal life, of a soft bed, of decadent sweets, of warmth, of an existence free of worry. They dream of being swept off their feet into one of the glamorous custom cars that cruise that street, emerging anew. Bag a royal and it can all be yours._

_No one ever really believes it will happen, but it’s a nice thought when you’re trying not to focus on the mats in your hair, the pain in your belly, or the cracks in your lips._

_But here she is, in a royal bed, wrapped in royal sheets, with a royal breakfast waiting for her on the royal imperial china._

_Why stop at bagging a royal, when you could bag a royal, her household minister, and a duke?_

_She lobs a pillow in Ferdinand’s direction. “You’re terrible,” she groans. “Close the curtains and come back to bed.”_

_Edie cuddles closer to her, still keeping one hand firmly on Hubert’s chest — as if she even needs to keep him in place._

_“The day is bright! We should face it with clear eyes and stout hearts.”  
  
“I’d suggest you face it with your boxers first.”_

\--  
  
She tightens her grip around Hubert’s waist. Edie’s strong, and Mercedes’ healing has brought them time, but the fact is they’ve all been wounded, that their blood is now part of the ruins and the soil.  
  
The thing —massive and winged— blocks out the sun. Time itself unspools at its feet. Its claws seem to rend the real around them.

“What are the odds this works?”  
  
Linhardt’s face is smeared with blood and his hands shake. The book has taken a beating, but his notes still hold.

“I’m more concerned about containing it.”  
  
“Fine, then how do we contain it, Lin?”

Linhardt looks to Lysithea.  
  
Lysithea looks to Linhardt.  
  
And Dorothea understands.

The last thing she smells is the salt of the ocean.

\--

His opponent knocks the queen down, and leans back. “Your move, your majesty.”

“I know when I’ve been outplayed.”

Hubert chuckles into the grimace, his wounds still seeping blood in bandages. “I’m fairly certain we all were.”

“You’re saying Her Imperial Highness---”  
  
He sips at his coffee, answering without answering. So no, not even Edelgard the Unflappable, had seen it coming.  
  
Claude pivots. “Why here? I won’t pretend not to be flattered. Or maybe offended? A cult is a terrible gift for a King. No way to forge an alliance.”

“I would have hoped the renewal of Almyra-Faerghus relations had been sufficient recompense.”

 _Cheeky bastard_ , the King thinks. Of course, the renewed romance was bound to get out eventually. He had just hoped to have it on his terms.

But then he thinks of the tale Hubert has told him, of the storms gathering along the border. “Are you really sure that this is all over? That it’s all said and done?”  
  
Hubert drums his fingers against the folded newspaper. “It’s only Lady Edelgard left to return. I suppose we’ll discover the answer together.”

“And if it isn’t?”  
  
But Claude already knows the answer. Generally, affairs of Adrestia are no longer his problem. His school days are long behind and he has a country to run, defenses to maintain, trade to conduct, the whole business of ‘ruling’ without going mad — but if they have failed, if it is indeed _not_ over, the affairs of Adrestia will be the affairs, and the madness, of all.


End file.
